Du has roped in India’s telecom solutions vendor Elitecore for the deployment of Wi-Fi service management and monetisation platform to address for mobile data offload, Wi-Fi calling, support for hotspot 2.0 and advanced analytics for monetisation.

The two companies are however currently working together on sea Wi-Fi offloading readiness, vice-president and Global Head— Marketing at Elitecore Technologies LK Pathak said, adding that the company has deployed 60 Wi-Fi hotspots and is currently scaling it to adjoining Abu Dhabi.

Pathak however, declined to comment on project’s cost, adding that there were lot of components involved, including software licensing, modules and features which keep on adding to the actual cost. The revenue however, is estimated to be at around Rs 25 crore,or $4 million, according to market insiders. Each of the Wi-Fi hotspots has a capability to cater to 5,000 to 10,000 individuals at a given time.

Du however, has plans to offer Wi-Fi connectivity to all bigticket events and locations in Dubai such as Formula-1, Burj Khalifa, shopping malls, beaches and public transport including Dubai Metro expansion.

Elitecore, according to Pathak, is strategically partnered with Du and is a core player in the entire ecosystem to facilitate Wi-Fi connectivity in the UAE region together with the telco which aims to provide high-speed Internet access to all Dubai residents at public places by 2021.

Du expects to deploy 5,000 Wi-Fi hotspots by the end of 2016, and Elitecore sees this engagement as strategic to also serve Dubai’s ‘Smart City’ ambition and expansion in other UAE locations.

Elitecore has been handling the entire project with no involvement of any local system integrator, said Pathak, and added that company’s solution is interoperable with network equipment from any vendor such as Huawei, Cisco or Ericsson, and subscribers can seamlessly latch onto Wi-Fi networks.

The company said Wi-Fi at public places will enable Du to free its cellular spectrum and reduce network clogging and it would complement and improve indoor data coverage as well as anytime anywhere connectivity. The Wi-Fi rollout will help Du to offer bundled proposition with core services and facilitate retailers to offer discount coupons, flash advertisements.